Let us Mend now....

                                           Shouldn’t We Mend Now?

An old saying is “Wise men learn from folly of others and fools wait till they commit blunders themselves”. A Dogri proverb means “It is futile to repent folly when handcuffed; but to mend when free person to escape being handcuffing”. We give sermons and pieces of good advice to convince others to reform them selves. But we seldom think necessary to ponder over our own weaknesses and  correct them. Our ego makes us think that whatever “I” think is correct even if it may be miles away from the accepted truth. Who cannot differentiate in the present day world between Right and Wrong? The simplest good behavior formula is to behave with others as you wish others to behave with you. Otherwise as we sow so shall we reap? Do we need a god man or mahatma to tell us every now and then that it is wrong to, lei, weigh less, over charge, abuse any body, harm an innocent creature, waste food, electricity, water, avoid corrupt means in one’s dealing, demand or snatch by deceit which belongs to others, over speed or wrongly parking you vehicle, reach late to office or work place,to obey established law and norms etc. etc. Should we be reminded every day by a saint to behave as top of the creation else KAL, MOUT  KA FRISHTA, DEVIL or negative power shall punish us after our death and put us in HELL. Even if a saint says so, how much does it effect our daily dealing after we move out of Satsang, Namaj, Kirtan, and Prayer Halls? Salvation lies in action not in only listening sermons. Baba Jaimal Singh (1839-1903) a Great Punjabi Mystic said “An ounce of practice is worth more than a ton of theory: How long we shall go on deceiving our selves. Let us try to be humans first then any thing else.  Almighty God, our Devine Father resides with in human frame, so all human frames are equal and have Devine brotherhood relationship. Hence to Love His children or creation is to love God. Buley Shah a Great Sofi Saint proclaimed “RAB ASSAN TO BAKH NAHIN, PAR DEKHAN WALI AKH NAHIN” meaning God is with us always, but we do not have yet the Devine Eye to see Him. Our   lust, ego, worldly attachment, greed and anger, are the greatest hurdles on our way to right path and leading us away from our goal of attaining salvation. First we have to be Human before making attempt to becoming God realization. For this we need to control KAM (Lust) with chastity, KARODH (Anger, hatred) with tolerance, LOBH (Greed) with contentment, MOH (Attachment) with detachment and AHNAKAR (Ego, Pride) with Humility or humbleness. Presently most of our actions do not qualify  us as humans. Leave aside our goal of Salvation or MUKTI   many of us do not qualify to be called as humans. Let us ponder over afresh on our actions and judge our selves how much we are concerned about ourselves and our fellow beings in our day to day worldly dealings.

Religion: - All religions preach oneness of human races. Religion is a private or personnel matter of an individual. Indian Constitution gives freedom to individuals to profess any religion of his or her choice or faith. Government affairs are carried as per constitutional provisions but religious matters as per the norms of the particular religion. Both have independent spheres. So long as a religion is not creating problems for the persons professing other religions, harmonious atmosphere prevails. This is required of all religions to respect religious sentiments of other religion persons. Different religions are to unite the people and not to create fissures in society. Mystic Kabir preached “Bakhere Bakhere Naam Dharande Ak Mitti De Bhandey”. Meaning Different Pots made out of the same earth by a potter are named differently”. Here Kabir refers pots as persons, Potter as God and the earth as our body material. So we should protect our body and also of others by controlling anger, hatred and ego.

Driving: - Are we not responsible for over 4, 90, 383 (2012) Lakh yearly accidents on Indian roads?. This resulted in death of 1, 38,258 (2012) persons with over 75% our youth. Is not driving with out helmets, with out proper driving licenses, over speeding, taking on Mobiles while driving, roaming animals on roads, improperly maintained vehicles, hurry, drinking while driving, continued use of vehicles beyond their  road worthiness age ,improper maintenance of roads, Rash driving, crisscrossing improper maintenance  and wrong parking of vehicles. It has also been said that accidents on Indian roads are the most deadliness in the world. As per WHO India losses $20 billion annually enough to feed 50% of the nation's malnourished children. In J&K1366 got killed besides 10910 injured in 2006. If we responsibly behave on roads much of the loss on this account can be avoided. Our ego, anger and ignorance are mostly responsible for such losses. In my recent visit to USA,I  found even bicycle riders wearing safe  crash helmets, where as in India many toxicants motorized two wheeler drivers dot not care to wear helmets.

Quit Use of Tobacco and other intoxicants: - Smoking, drinking and use of other intoxicants induces many ill health problems. WHO estimated Tobacco use deaths 5 million or more people every year? Also second hand smoking kills about 600,000 people every year. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death, so all should quit its use in all forms for his or her health safety.  Let the manufacturers, traders and  govt. controlling agencies   of such human race  killing intoxicants think of human race and not only their trading profits and tricks. Human lust is responsible for such huge avoidable human loss.

Corruption: - Corruption  is a world phenomenon now showing its ill effects on all spheres. It has assumed different shapes. Different scams from business house, Education, Army services, bureaucracy, politics, judiciary, police ,almost majority of  governinment  supplies, medicines, medical equipment and many other departmental services and purchases. Professor Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari claim in their book Corruption in India: the DNA and RNA that the public officials in India may be cornering as much as Rs 921.22 billion ($18.42 billion), or 1.26 per cent of the GDP, through corruption. The book claims most bribery is in the transport industry, real estate and government delivered services. Human greed and attachments to worldly acts cause such avoidable acts. Scams are other shapes of corruption. Greed of earning a little more interest than legitimate  government agency, banks rates from private cheats result in   most of the scams and money laundering.

Black Money:- A November 2010 report from the Washington-based Global Financial Integrity estimates that over a 60-year period, India lost $213 billion in illicit financial flows beginning in 1948; adjusted for inflation, this rose  to $462 billion in 2010 dollars, or about $8 billion per year ($7 per capita per year). The report also estimated the size of India's underground economy at approximately $640 billion at the end of 2008 or roughly 50% of the nation's GDP. Is it not shame for a nation claiming to be world leader in morality teachings?

Black Money in Switzerland:-According to a 2010 The Hindu article, unofficial estimates indicate that Indians had over $1456 billion in black money stored in Swiss banks (approximately USD 1.4 trillion) about 1.5% of India's GDP on average per annum basis. Human greed and attachments to unnecessary worldly things are mostly responsible for such acts.

Business and Corruption:- Public servants have very wide discretionary powers offering the opportunity to extort undue payments from companies and ordinary citizens. The awarding of public contracts is notoriously corrupt, especially at the state level. Scandals involving high-level politicians have highlighted the payment of kickbacks in the healthcare, IT and military sectors, games, coal ,forest, construction industry deals etc. The deterioration of the overall efficiency of the government, protection of property rights, ethics and corruption as well as undue influence on government and judicial decisions has resulted in a more difficult business environment. Human greed, ego and attachments to worldly acts cause inhuman acts.

Scams: - India lost incalculable amount in over 134 scams starting with one in 1948(Jeep scandal case) increasing to 41 numbers in the year2012. A number of scams involve nearly $1000 billions ( One billion is 1- lacs crores).Human greed and attachments to worldly acts cause such avoidable acts.

Bureaucracy:- Most of the largest sources of corruption in India are entitlement programmes and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission , Public Distribution System, License Raj. Other daily sources of corruption include India's trucking industry which is forced to pay billions in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highways. A study conducted by Transparency International in year 2005 found that more than 62% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. Long time associate of Mahatma Gandhi and First Indian Governor –General of India Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (1878-1972) warned that License Raj was often at the core of corruption. Human with uncontrolled weakness like greed, anger, lust and ego push persons to get involved in such unlawful activities.

Crime infected Politics: - The Indian voting percentage has never exceeded 70% and no political party ever got 50% of absolute votes. So all along India is being ruled by parties in minorities by political manipulations. As per latest reports2013 out of 543(Lok Sabha) members 162 (30%) have declared criminal cases with 14% as serious crimes cases against them. The State Assembly members no way lack behind. Out of total strength of 4032State Assembly MLA’s 1258(31%) of them have declared of facing criminal cases with 15% having serious natures cases against them. Out of total strength of Indian IAS officers 82% have stated that they faced political pressure with 63% saying the pressure was severe in nature. Human uncontrolled weakness like greed, anger, lust and ego are responsible for this act.                                                                                                   

Female foeticide:- Foeticide is destruction of a fetus.  Female foeticide is a curse on the twenty first century. Though people are educated and well groomed but still they overlook the importance of female child. Pre-natal sex determination is done and hence the fetus is aborted if a girl child is found. The crime has the involvement of doctors, radiologist, gynecologists, nursing staff, young and old women and men, mostly from  affluent society strata. Natural balance between human sex ratio has been adversely affected. In some places the male, female ratio has declined to 888 females per 1000 males. As such its our duty to educate and make those stuck into social dogmas aware of this social sin. The prevailing laws must be made stricter and women must be given their due position in the society. Those who believe in Manu’s theory that, a man cannot attain moksha (Salvation) unless he has a son or a grand- son to light his funeral pyre (9:137; 9:158) need be curbed. Also, it says a woman who gives birth to only daughters may be left in the eleventh year of marriage (9:81). But how Manu forget sons are born from woman’s womb. Human lust, greed and ego are most responsible for this great sin. A woman is punished to give birth to a girl child, where she has no fault in fertilizing a female child chromosome.

Suicides:- Modern times mental social, financial, family  stress besides  physiological and over ambitiousness are some of the causes of suicidal deaths. Last year Indian lost nearly 1,35,445 lives in suicides. A study concluded that in 2010 India lost187,000 lives. Of the 114,800 males who took their own lives in India in 2010, 40% were aged 15 to 29, while 56% of the 72,100 women were in that age bracket. Human ignorance, anger and ego are mostly cause of such avoidable acts.

Rapes:- Rape in India has been described by Radha Kumar as one of India's most common crimes against women and by the UN’s human-rights chief as a “national problem”. The latest estimate suggests a new case every 22 minutes.  During 2011 in India6227 rape cases were reported with North India accounted   for 25.73%.According to 2012 statistics, New Delhi has the highest number of rape-reports among Indian cities. According to a BBC report in February 2013, more than 7,200  children are raped each year in India. Underage victims who do report the assaults are often subjected to mistreatment and humiliation from the police. A landmark government survey in 2007 revealed that a lot of children in India are physically abused and that such occurrences are ″disturbingly common″ In January 2013,

 a 7-year old girl was raped in the school toilet while studying at school in Goa.  Lust ,Ego and Anger in man is solely responsible for rapes.

HIV:- The human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. In 1986, the first known case of HIV was diagnosed by Dr. Suniti Solmon amongst female sex workers in Chennai. Later that year, sex workers began showing signs of this deadly disease. At that time, foreigners in India were traveling in and out of the country. It is thought that these foreigners were the ones responsible for the first infections. The estimated number of people living with HIV was 2.08 million in 2011. It said a total 1.7 million people had died across the world due to AIDS related illness. In India, the figure for such deaths stood at 170,000 in 2009. The report says India has contributed enormously to the AIDS response. This deadly disease is caused only due to human folly. Uncontrolled sexual acts of a few human has landed the world in a disease finding difficulties to control and save human race world over.

NPA in Banks:-Starting with 1955 till now 30 Indian Banks were Nationalized .The idea behind was that Public sector banks shall give preference to priority sectors in advancing loans. Thus, nationalisation will promote efficiency in management of financial resources with banks.. This was felt necessary to achieve the socialistic patter of the society, which needed financial resources in a big way with better control and management under government authority.  But  accounts of only 40 listed Banks have landed the country into NPA  of Rupees 3.1 Lakh crores(March-2013) with chances to touch Rupees 4 Lakh crores by March 2014. Big and medium business houses rule the rost.Only greed and mismanagements are responsible for this huge amount to get locked in non performance assets.   Human greed and worldly attachments are solely responsible for such acts.

       Humans, particularly political party and religious activists are wasting much of their and others time, money and resources on act responsible for general public miseries, wastage of time, money, energies and goodwill. Such acts include Bands, Hartals celebrating anniversaries, Jankies, arranging satsangs, kirtans ,Namaj, festival, marriage processions and many such  other acts on roads and in public parks. A majority of religious buildings have come up on Government or local bodies lands, parks, canal, river  banks etc.  During all these ceremonies roads and bridges are closed with out any advance warning or suggesting alternative routes. Such unplanned processions on common roads are responsible for national wastages and avoidable inconveniences to public particularly, week, old, diseased persons, office goers and school children. We do not care to even obey the Highest Indian Court ruling where in Bands, Hartals  , procession causing human inconveniences and burning of government and private properties are banned. Uncontrolled noises produced by music systems, religious ceremonies, automobiles, particularly at night are very injurious to health. These noises not only cause ill health effects on children but affect their studies and sleep as well.